The recent weird twists in the most known Salem love saga reminded me that aside fun mechanics like milking the bull and beating a dead horse (planned) we also need to be able to feed the troll. So here we go:

In general trolls shall be similar to their Haven counterparts, so they can be spawned while mining and their initial level depends on mine level. The would have some 200-300 hit points per level, stun resistance, high defence for piercing and much lower for blunt and impact. Their preferred attack would be stomp. Otherwise combat AI would be similar to that of a bear. They will have ability to teleport target to themselves, like a dbear.Trolls will be based on domestic animals mechanics in that respect that they never despawn and are able to move even if there is no player around to load the map.Trolls would not immediately aggro characters around, because of mechanics described below there must be a guaranteed time delay of a minute or two. Trolls would have ability to cross mine levels both ways.Trolls can be fed. Feeding a troll prevents it from attacking anyone or anything for 30 hours and they would not accept next slab for 24 23 hours. Trolls are big creatures and they would only take meat slabs. Feeding 100 slabs to a troll will cause it to grow a level. Since trolls would not aggro immediately, there is always short time to feed it. Trolls would remember last 3 characters who fed them and allow more time for these characters. In angry mode the troll will attack immediately anyone and allow only short time for those who fed him before.A troll which has not been fed for 48 hours gets angry. A troll which has not been fed for 5 days starts to lose weight, that is all the progress to next level and possibly even a level. A level 1 troll which was hungry for 105 days will crumble to a pile of rubble. On the surface trolls will lose weight 8 times faster, except while on "friendly" claims where any of chars who fed him has any permission. In that case they would lose weight 2 times faster only.Troll level shall grow well beyond level 9 but perhaps there should be some hard limit on troll level as some people would keep on feeding their troll intentionally. Time is already a limit since it takes 100 days to gain a level.

Trolls would have 3 movement speeds. At peaceful mode they would move no more than 1 tile per hour and usually do not damage objects on their way except for not frequent incidents. In particular they can damage mine supports. While hungry and angry they would move at speed of 10 tiles per hour caring less for stuff they damage and eating food from destroyed containers. That would extend the time before they lose a level but not remove angry status. They would also eat any stones, ore and metal bars. They would occasionally destroy a black tile in a mine. They would tend to move towards mine ladders - up or down. AI implementation requires an internal flag to decide if a particular troll has tendency to move up or down and with small chance to flip that flag when crossing level entrances. A troll that lost a level while being on surface will seek shelter in the nearest mine, without much care about structures he may hit on his way.At combat mode their speed would be similar to that of a bear.

So when someone decides to feed the troll instead of killing it immediately, he can go like that for years, but if he decides to quit, his troll will eventually reach the surface and do a serious damage to the abandoned base before it crumbles. There is also a chance that scavengers rummaging through such an abandoned base would run into the angry troll. There is a chance that some trolls would reach Dreamworld. and possibly even resurface in some other random mine. The option for luring trolls should be limited, but with a serious effort they can be directed by placing structures in their way.

Edit: Trolls reaching Dreamworld should set their direction flag to up after some time or else they would all stay at the bottom.

Last edited by Chrumps on Mon Aug 06, 2018 12:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.